Something
by Atholl
Summary: Just the prologue for now, but will be about Draco. The prologue, which is sappily angsty for a purpose, is set before he is born.
1. Prologue

Prologue

_It was a chilly day and all the windows were tightly shut.  There was a heavy stillness throughout the house, broken only by occasional soft footsteps—and even these seemed to be drowned out and swallowed by the stifling quiet. _

_Though it was frigid outside, the sky was a bright sapphire blue, completely unmarred by traces of any clouds. The ground was covered with pure, untouched snow. The windows were laced with thin layers of frost in various winding designs. In a bare tree near the frozen-over pond, a mother bird fed her chirping babies. All around, the cool air was filled with an invigorating, refreshing quality. This was the kind of winter day Narcissa Malfoy people lived for, and yet she was oblivious to it all._

_This particular room was dimly lit by a few flames in a fireplace near the door, which gave off an unpleasantly yellowish glow. Various sharply angled pieces of furniture around the room cast grotesque shadows against the walls and on Narcissa's pale face, amplifying the circles under her eyes and the raw, bitten quality of her lips.  She was in the bed in the center of the room, propped up into a sitting position with pillows. The young nurse had tucked soft sheets and wool blankets around her as though to comfort her and had timidly suggested that Narcissa try to sleep—and she _had_ tried—but no matter what, all Narcissa could seem to do was stare at the vacant doorway. She scarcely dared to breathe, as though she thought breathing might disrupt the fragile balance in which everything seemed to be. It had been nearly two hours since they had taken her child away. _

_Narcissa was almost sure what Anita, the newest addition to the every-growing list of pretty-faced Malfoy servants, would say when she returned. She had felt it in her stomach when they had taken her child away. Truth be told, she had even felt it when they had first told her she was pregnant. What use was there in hoping if she knew that the very thing she dreaded was sure to happen? Time after time she had waited, only to have her heart broken again, and each time she took it equally as hard. But Narcissa couldn't _help_ hoping, as she sat there, silly as she knew it was to do so. Looking into her newborn girl's slate-grey eyes, gazing up at her questioningly, had given her hope. It was blind hope, but it was something. Maybe this time, things would be different; maybe this time, she would be lucky; maybe Anita would come back, cheeks flushed with excitement, with the little girl; maybe, in just a few minutes, Narcissa would have her baby in her arms, stroking her hair, playing with her hands, touching her face and whispering to her, telling her not to be afraid…_

_Narcissa was jerked out of her fantasy when Anita reappeared in the doorway, looking nothing short of miserable. Immediately, Narcissa didn't like the expression on the nurse's face. It was too familiar. But maybe…_

_"Well?" Narcissa prompted gently after a few moments, because Anita seemed disinclined to speak. She sat forward involuntarily and eagerly, her eyes filled with a sort of manic desperation and excitement. "Where is she, Anita?"_

_The young nurse gazed miserably at her mistress for a few moments and then hung her head, her lower-lip trembling a little. Narcissa felt her heart plummet into her stomach; she lowered her eyes and looked away._

_"Where's Lucius?" she said quietly after a minute, letting go of the sheets she had been gripping._

_"Mr. Malfoy's working," Anita mumbled, still staring fixedly at the floor. "Would you like me to owl him?"_

_"No," said Narcissa immediately, sitting back heavily. She suddenly felt very exhausted and ashamed. She wanted to be alone. "No, that won't be necessary. You may leave now."_

_"Yes, Ma'am," said Anita. She clumsily half-curtsied and left the doorway a little more quickly than seemed necessary._

_Once Anita's light footfalls had receded, Narcissa sighed and sank far into the depths of her fortress of pillows, closing her eyes. How idiotic. How utterly stupid she was to have believed for even a second that her luck might change. She was stupid to hope, stupid to pray, stupid to fantasize about it all…how it might feel to hold a little bundle of life in her arms and know that it was _hers_…to watch it grow and smile and laugh…and maybe, one day, watch it learn to love her just as much as it was loved by her…_

_"Narcissa."_

_The voice was almost inaudibly soft, but the tone of it made Narcissa's eyes snap open. Suddenly alert, she heaved herself into sitting position. And feigning composure, though her heart was beating wildly, looked straight at the doorway._

_"Yes, Lucius?"_

*

Please let me know what you think. Suggestions are more than welcome, as I have no idea where I want this to go.


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One

Draco awoke to the pressure of his father's hand on his shoulder.

"We'll be there in a while," he was saying quietly. "You'd better get your things together."

Draco nodded blearily and sat up. He had fallen asleep leaning against his father, a book in his lap; nervousness and excitement had prevented him from getting much sleep the night before. Now, he began putting the book and a few other scattered things into his backpack, which he had packed earlier with things to amuse himself during the fairly long car ride. Out the window, the trees whipped by, blurred together in a hazy mix of green and brown, and the sky was brilliantly blue. The road they were on was virtually deserted. The grass on either side of the road was green and alive, and here and there, there were patches of multi-colored wildflowers. There were faster ways, of course, to get to King's Cross, but Draco and his father had agreed that it was too beautiful a morning to take anything but the scenic route.

"I'm going to miss having you around," his father said after a few minutes. Draco turned and saw that Lucius was smiling down at him fondly.

"Me, too," said Draco, smiling back. And he meant it.

After a little while, when the trees started to turn into buildings and crowded streets, a vague and familiar sense of irrational panic began to seize Draco. Nine whole months without his father…

But he tried his best to shake it off. It was childish and embarrassing to act this way, to be so attached to one's parents that you couldn't stand being away from them. Besides, Hogwarts wasn't bad. He didn't have many friends—his last memory of having a good friend was from when he was very small—but he enjoyed most of his classes and teachers, and there was Quidditch, and though the food was far inferior to what he was used to, he never ate much anyway. He had done it four times before; he should be able to do it again. Most importantly, his parents wouldn't want him to be sad or scared. They would want him to be brave.

After what seemed like no time at all, Draco's door was being opened and he was walking through the entrance to the station. Before he knew it, his luggage was being loaded onto the Hogwarts Express and he was hugging his father. He tried fiercely to keep from crying, but his father must have seen through him, because he smiled and said,

"I'll owl you every day."

Draco nodded, ashamed, and allowed his father to kiss his forehead. He prayed no one was watching. When he boarded the train, he leaned out the window.

"Goodbye, Father," he said rather half-heartedly. "Tell mother I love her." He waved once, now struggling to keep his panicky feeling, which now wasn't vague at all, at bay.

Lucius leaned up, still smiling, and touched Draco's cheek.

"Don't worry," he whispered, "about missing out. I'll see to it that things run smoothly."

Draco forced a smile and leaned back through the window and into his empty compartment as the train started to move away. He didn't trust himself to watch his father until he was out of site, as was their tradition.

Draco closed his eyes and let exhaled loudly, Then suddenly, as though the impact of his father's words had taken a while to settle in, images started to leap involuntarily across his mind, memories of experiences that he knew he should have enjoyed, but made him quake. Things that he tried fervently to forget, but kept him up late into the night. Attributing it, as always, to his sensitive stomach, Draco leaned back and tried to calm himself down; his panic was now joined by a typical sense of fear and unease. Hoping that his friends wouldn't try to come and find him for at least a little while, he shifted so he was lying down on the seat. He closed his eyes and unconsciously slipped into the realm of memories...

_"Come on," he says to me excitedly, quickening his pace. I quicken mine._

_The house draws closer and closer as we hurry down the deserted street. The night is pitch-black, the air lit only by a few porch lights. The houses on the street are large and extravagant; they scare me, leering down at me, as though they know what I'm about to do. I'm shaking, but I do my best to hide it from him; I don't want him to know. Everything is still, save for our quiet and urgent footsteps and the rustling of the trees that line the street. Even the cats have stayed at home on this night, as though they know why we're here. _

_On any other occasion, I would find this cowardly, this stealing around under cover of darkness. I don't even know whose house we're going to. But this is father. I know there's a reason for everything._

_"Right," he says, stopping in front of the big white house. "Listen to me carefully."_

_He's given me this talk at least a hundred times, enough for me to have memorized it, but I wait patiently for my instructions anyway and pay rapt attention when they come. I want more than anything to please him._

_"You need to know the importance of what you are doing," he begins, as always. "One blunder, one false move…our futures depend on this, son. His Lordship's future depends on it. Everything depends on you and me. You understand."_

_I nod fervently, wanting him to know how much I want to do this._

_"Remember what you've been taught. Don't let it go to waste."_

_I shake my head just as excitedly. I remember hours and hours of the summer spent training…wanting to learn, but at the same time aching to be outside, swimming in the pond or just reading…and then knowing that those days were over, that this was inevitable, that this was my destiny. And I loved it._

_"I know you'll be fine, son" he is saying, now getting really excited and now he ruffles my hair fondly. "You're young. It's true. No one else is confident that you can do this. But you're my son. _I _have confidence in you. I know you won't fail me."_

_I smile, basking for a moment in the glow of his unwavering pride. Then, it's time to go. He pulls on his white mask and I follow suit, watching him and adjusting it so it looks as close to his as possible. I want him to tell them, all his friends, our master, how wonderful I am, how I performed with grace and agility and perfection. I want to _be_ perfect.  In the blackness of the night, my father seems to shine._

_And we go inside._

Someone was talking to him. Draco sat up quickly and looked towards the compartment door; it was the food witch.

"Sorry," he said, running a hand through his hair, "what did you say?"

"Would you like something to eat?" the witch said kindly and slowly, as though she were dealing with a three-year-old.

"Oh," said Draco. "No, nothing…thanks."

The woman smiled and moved on, sliding the door closed behind her. Draco got up and peered through the window and into the aisle, making sure no one had seen him. No one seemed to have, so he sat back heavily on his seat and tiredly buried his face in his hands.

He remembered that night, all those years ago. The whole experience stood out vividly, as though there were television screens on the backs of his eyelids. His first "adventure," as his father liked to call them. They had gone into the house. And he _had_ performed beautifully. He had maimed, tortured, killed, and had done everything without the slightest bit of hesitation. His father had been ecstatic, saying Draco couldn't have made him prouder. He hadn't even been angry when Draco vomited all over him on the way to the portkey—nerves, was all he had said. He had spoiled him with affection for weeks afterward. 

What disturbed and frightened Draco most, though, wasn't what he had done. It wasn't the magnitude of taking another human beings life; it wasn't the way they had looked at him, the terror in their eyes, the way they had pleaded with him, the way he hadn't listened; it wasn't even peeling off his clothes, covered with dry, crusted blood, and bathing in a dirty mix of water and someone else's remains, and feeling wretched and disgusting …

It was that he liked it.

Yes, Draco thought, as he fished in his bag for his book, he liked it while it was happening. He liked the pleading stares of his victims, the sense of control and power it gave him. Even better than his father's love, more rewarding, was the intoxicating excitement that coursed through his veins when they went on these adventures. It scared him, though he couldn't decide whether it was because he knew it was wrong or because he knew it was right, whether it was because he was obsessed or because it made him ill to think about it. He believed it scared him even more than it did his mother.

His mother…

Draco stopped searching for his page and looked out the window, where the streets and buildings had long since blended back into trees and lakes and the perfect, blue sky again. His mother simply added to the confusion. Draco loved her and it hurt him when she was displeased with him. Every time he and his father would have an adventure, she wouldn't speak to him for days, sometimes even weeks at a time. This very day, she had refused to accompany Draco and his father to King's Cross. She always waited for them on those nights, as though if she did it would turn out that they hadn't done what they had set out to do; and when Draco would enter the kitchen, his hands caked with blood, she would cry and leave the room. It confused him. He didn't know why she bothered. And sometimes it made him angry, too. She wasn't the one who had to do what he did, after all. She wasn't the one who had to do things that made her sick afterwards, just to do what she thought was right. Draco didn't understand—this was his duty, wasn't it? It was what he was destined to do. He knew it, and his father knew it…so why didn't she? He didn't understand her, and he supposed she didn't understand him.

Which is why he and his father got along so well, Draco guessed. They shared a mutual understanding; this relationship was of a quality that was far higher what Draco had with his mother. He could vaguely remember years when he had spent almost every day with his mother, going on walks with her and playing with her. He had memories of being an infant in a carrier across her chest, of the way her eyes shone when she looked at him, of the way she whispered to him. 

But that was all ancient history now. It had been years since those times; somewhere in the course of Draco's life, they had grown apart. Perhaps it had started when Lucius had begun spending more time with him, that year when he had seemed to take a sudden interest in him. Once Draco had hit the age of six, his father had started to him away from his lessons more and more, away from his playmates. He had trained him. Draco learned hexes and curses how to dodge them. His father would give him books to read and quiz him on what they were about. His days became long and very tiring, and sometimes he was unable to distinguish between dreams and reality, but he never complained. He immensely enjoyed being taught by his father; it gave Draco the sensation that he was doing what his father wanted him to do, and nothing gave him more pleasure. It gave him a sense of purpose, a goal, something to work up to. It made him proud when his father greeted him with his usual smile in the mornings and began to talk to Draco as though what he was saying to him was the most important thing in the world, as though only Draco could execute the plans his father was always going on about. Draco wasn't stupid: he knew that this wasn't exactly true. But he liked it anyway. So he allowed himself to be drawn in by his father's confidential air.

Now, as Draco watched trees go by, he felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. With every minute that went by, he was taken farther away from his home…and farther away from his father.

*          *          *

This chapter is basically me trying something different from Lucius raping Draco or beating him or being a really, really horrible person. I think Lucius loves him, no matter how twisted he is. And it doesn't always have to be in a sexual way…

This _is_ related to the prologue, by the way…er…somehow.

Anyway, let me know what you think.


End file.
